


we're all seashores when you think about it

by softhearted



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, HELLO I EDITED THIS THREE AND A HALF YEARS AFTER THE ORIGINAL POSTING DATE, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of Harry Potter, Mentions of Panic Attacks, Not Harry Just Dementors, Not In Chronological Order, Scott gets hurt, Sheriff Stilinski is a Good Parent, and cuddles, blowjob, i still dont know how to tag im sorry, just one tiny mention of danny mahealani, mostly just stiles loving dereks dick, so many feelings, theres a blowjob also, this was supposed to be fluff, what happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:04:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2051124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softhearted/pseuds/softhearted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>EDIT: hello, this was published 31st of July, 2014. It is now December 2017 and I was like, hey, let's rewrite this. So I added like 1200 words. You're welcome. </p><p>‘Danny owed me something’, is the only explanation he gets when Derek stands amidst unpacked boxes in his living room.</p><p>‘Very CSI,’ Stiles praises.</p><p>Derek shrugs.</p><p>Stiles gives him a box to unpack.</p><p> </p><p>or: almost 3k words on how stiles leaves, and derek follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're all seashores when you think about it

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to bogi for being an amazing beta, as usual. and for telling me to get my shit together. 
> 
> thanks to isabelle for being nice about my fics?? it means a lot. 
> 
> i am not 100% satisfied with this fic, but i thought, if i dont put it up now, i am not going to do it ever. so yeah. 
> 
> warnings at the end

Stiles leaves Beacon Hills two days after graduation. There’s a small apartment with his mother’s name on it in Seattle, back from before she started fading. The thing about loving someone is losing them hurts, and Stiles knows this better than anyone, but he won’t really say that out loud, because there are plenty of people who have loved and who have lost, and he wouldn’t want anyone to feel like he feels entitled, like he deserves to be sad more than others.

There’s a van out front that he hopes no one will see, boxes and bags already in the back. For the first time in what feels like ages, he hugs his father. ‘I love you,’ he tells him, hoping it’s not too late, not too stupid, not too disappointing.

It doesn’t seem to be any of those things. ‘I know, son. I do.’

Stiles shakes his head, worrying about how it might come across, or what his father might think of him. ‘I never really—’

John cuts him off, says ‘I know, I know. I love you, kid. Now go,’ and smiles.

Stiles knows he said it was temporary, but when the door shuts behind him, it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way. He doesn’t think he’s ever going back.

|| — ||

There is a moment in time, when Stiles Stilinski watches a clean-shaven Derek Hale emerge from the woods, yelling something about private property, that made him think  _damn, he could gladly trespass on_ my  _private property._

|| — ||

‘Danny owed me something’, is the only explanation Stiles gets when Derek Hale stands amidst unpacked boxes in his living room. He wants to say something about private property, but he doesn’t really know how to use his mouth anymore, and there isn’t much to say anyway, because Derek Hale is like a ghost from the past he’d rather forget.

‘Very CSI,’ Stiles praises, trying his best to form a smile that doesn’t quite work out.

Derek shrugs.

Stiles sighs and gives him a box to unpack.

|| — ||

It’s a month before graduation when Scott, of all people, comes to Stiles with the notion that something weird is going on. It’s a story about the hospital, about people just walking in front of cars and not caring about what might happen to them, or anyone else, and when Scott’s done talking, he says: ‘But yeah, don’t worry, it might be nothing.’

There is a sigh that comes from the deepest parts of Stiles’ body, and he shakes his head. It’s never _nothing_ around Beacon Hills anymore. That’s the whole fucking point.

|| — ||

He settles in nicely, starts working at the bookstore where they still know his mother’s name and tell stories about her laugh and he touches books she read, searching for ghosts of fingertips and echoes.  

Derek stays in his apartment, too; claimed the guest room, but he doesn’t eat any of Stiles’ pop-tarts and does the groceries while Stiles is at work and sometimes he carries the bags of the elderly lady in 38B up the stairs when she asks Stiles to do it, so he doesn’t really mind.

(Mrs. Hemming pays them back in cookies and other baked goods. He doesn’t really mind that either.)

|| — ||

Derek tries to tell him stuff; tries to keep him up to date about a town Stiles is all too ready (and willing) to forget. He doesn’t want to hear stories about Scott and Deaton and Lydia, he doesn’t want to know how they’re doing, or what they’re up to. He doesn’t care anymore. This is his life now. He doesn’t want to hear it.

‘You don’t want to face it,’ Derek spits, the words hot in his mouth, during dinner. ‘That’s different.’

Stiles focuses on Ninja Warrior, shoves more lasagne in his mouth, and shuts up.

|| — ||

Derek makes mean tacos. When Stiles tells him this, he laughs. Stiles thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

|| — ||

When John asks about weird stuff happening, Stiles knows it’s one of two things. The first one is the hardest, the one where he wants to talk about feelings or sex or things fathers should talk about with their sons but thinks Stiles really, totally, absolutely doesn’t wanna talk about. The second one is easy. The second one is simple, and something Stiles always wants to talk about.

The Sheriff pinches the bridge of his nose, looking exhausted. Stiles takes that as a Number Two problem, and not the toilet kind. ‘Anything wrong?’ he asks, running his eyes over every visible part of his father, checking for injuries.

‘I’m fine, Stiles,’ he sighs.

The boy holds his hands up in defeat. ‘Just checking, dude. Can’t a boy care about his old man?’

‘You can. And don’t call me dude.’

Stiles rolls his eyes, then puts his serious face on, one eyebrow raised. ‘So what’s up, then?’

Sometimes, Stiles looks so much like Claudia it hurts John to look at him. Not just his face, the way his nose is turned a little upwards, the colour of his eyes, but everything about the way he carries himself, too. The heaviness of his mind, sometimes, reminds him more of Stiles’ mother than of Stiles’ himself. ‘It’s nothing,’ he tells him, ‘just some deputies at the station acting strange.’

Stiles frowns. ‘Define strange? Is it like, being reckless and slash or uncaring about their lives or sanity or future or family? Is it that kind of strange? Because if it is, dad, I mean, you should totally tell me, because—’

Exasperated: ‘Stiles, what the hell is going on?’

Stiles shakes his head, pulling the newspaper closer to him and clicking his pen seven times before he looks up again. ‘Which deputies? Like, a lot? Or like, three of them? I need names, dad, pronto.’ He scribbles something next to the headline about an interview with Melissa McCall, but Stiles’ handwriting is hardly readable when it’s not upside down, so John doesn’t even try to read it.

‘Son,’ he starts, but Stiles interrupts him.

‘Dad,’ he says. ‘I’ll explain, okay? But names, first.’ And then, like an afterthought: ‘Please.’

John wants to say something, wants to shake Stiles until he explains, but instead he looks down at the picture of Melissa in the paper and sighs. ‘Rass,’ he says, ‘Kora, Thomas. Jameson, too, but he’s always been a bit...’

‘...of a wildcard, I know,’ Stiles finishes. ‘That’s all of ‘em?’

A pause. ‘That’s all. Now explain.’

|| — ||

It’s barely two weeks after Derek appeared in his living room when he crouches down in front of Stiles and keeps repeating his name. Everything must always fall apart just before it falls into place, with them, Stiles thinks.

‘Derek, hey,’ he croaks, surprised, like he isn’t having a panic attack on the kitchen floor. ‘What are you doing home?’ He only looks up for a split second, not wanting to see the look in Derek’s eyes, before going back to counting his fingers. One to ten, over and over again, telling himself this is real, this is real, this is real.

Derek says something.

Stiles keeps counting. He didn’t think he could hide this for much longer, anyway.

|| — ||

‘It is, indeed, a Baku,’ Deaton says. ‘A witch must have summoned it, but I am uncertain as of why.’

‘Do those witches ever really need a reason?’ Stiles complains, leaning against the counter. He is _so done_ with all this stuff, so done with the supernatural that always seems to be right around the corner. It used to be fun, you know, being some kind of werewolfy Justice League, or whatever, but by now it just became tedious. ‘They seem to be out just to give us something to do.’

Deaton shakes his head, but no one ever knows what he means with that, anyway. ‘The tale of the Baku is simplified to a children’s story, a friendly animal children can ask to eat away their nightmares. The actual  Baku is a beast, it isn’t satisfied with just bad dreams, it needs more, it needs hope, and aspirations, and dreams for the future.’

No one even asked for a damn explanation, but Deaton keeps at his lecture anyway. Stiles gives Scott a look, one that says _where do they teach people to speak like this, seriously man, what the hell_? and Scott shoots a look back that says _i don’t even know dude_ and this is why they’re best friends, obviously.

‘The Baku cannot be controlled; cannot be tamed,’ Deaton continues. Is anyone even listening? Does Deaton even _care_? ‘There’s no reason to summon one. Not even untrained witches or faeries would benefit from a town full of reckless, uncaring people.’

‘We don’t care why it’s here,’ Derek says, running his hand over his face, saying what _everyone in the damn room_ is thinking. ‘We just want to know how to get rid of it.’

Deaton smiles. Stiles shivers, sees it coming: ‘That’s where Stiles comes in. The Baku can be exorcised with a dreamcatcher, combined with a spell. When thrown correctly, it will catch the beast.’

Dreamcatcher. Ironic.

‘No offense, here, but,  _hello_ ’, Stiles gestures at himself, arms flailing, ‘have you  _seen_ me play lacrosse, have you  _seen_  my aim? Are we seriously trusting the benchwarmer to  _throw a dreamcatcher correctly_?’

|| — ||

Tuesdays, he calls his dad. Bullies him until he promises to eat something healthy, makes stupid jokes, asks about deputy Parrish, about Mrs. McCall. Fridays, they Skype, and Stiles gives him video tours of the apartment, of Derek making taco’s and lasagne and soup.

He hasn’t talked to anyone else back home.

|| — ||

The approximate distance from Seattle to Beacon Hills is five hundred forty four miles. Stiles knows that that’s almost eight hundred seventy five point five kilometres. Driving, it would take him eleven hours and thirty five minutes to get back home. Sometimes, he sits in his jeep and thinks: This is it. I’m going back.

He never does.

|| — ||

‘Scott has forgiven you, you know,’ Derek tells him one night. They’re sitting back to back with a door shut between them, Stiles counting his fingers and breathing heavily. ‘He hasn’t, technically, because he wasn’t even angry, but—’

‘ _Derek_ ,’ he spits out, a plea for him to stop talking, to keep talking, to do anything to get him out of this nightmare of a life.

‘Sorry, it’s just, no—no one blames you, Stiles.’

Stiles lets his head fall back against the door with a thud.

|| — ||

 _This_ is why you do not trust the bench warmer to throw shit at an evil spirit, Stiles thinks as the dreamcatcher completely misses where it was supposed to go. He can’t even get a ball in a goal, let alone hit a  _moving target_ _._ He hears Scott yell, running towards the dreamcatcher on all fours, and he sees how the Baku turns his head sharply towards his best friend.

Seeing something suck the life force out of someone you’ve known since you were four is nothing like you imagine it is. It looks like a Dementor’s Kiss. And maybe if it were anyone else than his best friend, or anyone he cares about, Stiles would have been able to be excited (or disappointed)  about the fact that their equivalent of a Dementor is a bear-elephant-tiger-ox-rhino thing.

But it’s Scott. And the spell he’s performing binds him to his spot, unable to save his best friend, his  _brother_.

So Stiles cries.

|| — ||

Stiles likes to claim Derek had a crush on him since the very first day they met. Stiles is wrong, really. The first day they met, Stiles was looking for (a part of)  Derek’s sister’s corpse, and even all the times they met after that, Stiles was annoying, and, like, sixteen years old, and sarcastic, and  _way_ too stubborn for his own good.

And then the boy held him up in a swimming pool for about two hours.

|| — ||

‘You don’t understand,’ Stiles says, voice shaking, hands trembling. He clenches and unclenches his fists, fighting the urge to count his fingers. He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe he just got used to his life being a nightmare.

Derek smells the saltiness of tears, but nothing runs down Stiles’ cheeks. ‘Then _explain_ ,’ he begs, ‘because they are your friends and they miss you, and they want you back home.’

‘I can’t go home!’ Stiles exclaims, his voice breaking. He thinks about all the things he did wrong, about all the things he could’ve done differently. He thinks about a Dementor’s Kiss, about killing himself, about anything that can make him hate himself more than he already does. ‘Scott needed me and I left. I fucked up  his life, and then I left him alone.’

Derek shakes his head. ‘Scott doesn’t think you fucked up his life. He thinks he fucked up yours.’

|| — ||

‘Do you want something to drink?’ Kira asks Scott. She looks tired; dark circles under her eyes, eyebrows knitted together in a constant frown. When she brings back a glass of water, Stiles can’t stop looking at the way her hand shakes.

She closes her eyes and exhales, either to keep her cool or to give herself some kind of preparation of what’s coming next. ‘Scott?’

Scott looks up.

Kira looks like she’s going to fall apart and cry and scream, all at the same time, but her voice is uncharacteristically calm: ‘Water?’

The boy shrugs.

She turns to Stiles apologetically, like she needs to have an explanation, like she needs to apologise for what happened to Scott. ‘He isn’t really—He hasn’t been—’

Stiles takes her hand, stills it with his own, and for one moment, Kira looks like she’s going to break. He turns to Scott. ‘I’m going to kill that thing, alright?’ he promises. ‘Don’t worry, buddy, we’re going to get you back.’

The boy shrugs.

|| — ||

After the first time Derek encountered Stiles’ panic attack, he doesn’t leave him alone a lot. Sometimes, he lets the boy use  _his_  hands to count fingers. Sometimes he hugs the boy’s back to his chest to make it easier for him to copy Derek’s breaths.

They don’t know why, and they don’t know what it means, but they never mention it afterwards.

|| — ||

 ‘I’m thinking about working out,’ Stiles says, his feet on Derek’s lap while he throws popcorn into his mouth, staring at the ceiling.

Derek looks up from his book, raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh really? I’m thinking about becoming a priest.’

Stiles throws popcorn at his face.

 _Asshole_.

|| — ||

Two days later Derek wakes him up at 5:30 to go for a run.

‘No,’ Stiles groans. ‘No no no no no no.’ He hides his face in his pillow.

‘Yes,’ Derek says, pulling Stiles out of the bed by his ankle. ‘Yes yes yes yes yes yes. You’ll thank me later.’

Stiles whines. ‘I’ll  _punch_ you later.’

|| — ||

(He does punch him later. On accident. While trying not to trip over his own feet.)

|| — ||

‘Stiles?’ Scott sounds soft, needy. Distressed, maybe, or desperate.

Stiles doesn’t know what to think of it, doesn’t even know what to _say_ , so he just swallows loudly and presses the phone a bit tighter against his ear, like it makes them closer to each other, like he didn’t flee to Seattle to never have to face this again. ‘Scott,’ he breathes, and he’s totally not crying, he swears. ‘Scott, hi.’

He might not have super hearing, but he can hear the sob escaping from Scott’s throat and oh god, they’re _so lame_. ‘Stiles—fuck, man—I... _Stiles_.’

Stiles laughs breathlessly. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘yeah, it’s me.’

Neither of them know what to say, so they just say nothing and listen to each other breathe and revel in the fact that the other person is still on the phone, on the other side of the line, wanting to talk and not angry and not dead or ruined or broken.

Okay, maybe a little bit broken.

‘I miss you,’ Scott says in a way that makes Stiles insides turn into dust. ‘I have everything back.’

He nods. ‘I miss you too,’ he mutters.

It’s quiet for a long time after that.

‘Are you ever coming back?’ Scott asks.

Stiles hangs up the phone.

|| — ||

‘I hit it! It vanished! I  _killed_ it. Why isn’t anything happening? Something has to be  _happening_!’ Stiles’ leg twitches, eyes focused on Scott. The boy is just sitting there, just _sitting_ , like nothing is happening and nothing matters and like he is still dead inside.

Deaton touches Scott’s face, looks him in the eyes. They’re milky and empty, like they’re denying any sort of feeling to seep into them. ‘Scott? Are you okay there?’ he asks in a way Stiles is pretty convinced he uses to talk to dogs.

Scott shrugs.

Something inside Stiles breaks. ‘Why isn’t he going back to normal?’ he demands to know,  _needs_  to know. He did this. It was supposed to be okay. Scott was supposed to be okay. Everything was supposed to be okay.

Deaton gives him the most unsatisfactory answer in the history of unsatisfactory answers: ‘I don’t know.’

|| — ||

Derek kisses Stiles, just to know how it feels. The boy tastes like black coffee and burnt sugar and mint leaves, like the ones his mother used to grow behind the Hale house. Stiles kisses him back, opens his mouth, greedy,  _needy_.

It’s nothing like he imagined it would be. Derek wonders if Stiles thought about it as much as he had.

|| — ||

The Baku-mystery is so anti-climactic Stiles thinks he could cry. It’s a girl named Ana, and she’s eight years old and unaware of her witchy heritage.

‘She has learned about the tale in her previous foster home,’ Deaton explains, like _anyone_ is still interested in this lame story. ‘She merely wanted him to take away her nightmares.’

‘It was a fucking child, guys,’ Stiles summarises, quite unhelpfully. ‘Surprise, Beacon Hills gave a kid nightmares, and now our lives have gone to _shit_.’

|| — ||

Stiles likes sucking Derek off, likes the weight of it on his tongue, likes Derek’s hand at the back of his head, guiding. Derek’s in control, Derek knows what’s good, Derek knows what Stiles can handle.

Sometimes, Stiles’ skin is too tight, too taut over his flesh. Derek knows how to unwind him, how to ground him, knows Stiles doesn’t want to make decisions, knows Stiles doesn’t want to think.

Stiles wants to look at Derek and know he can trust him, blindly. Stiles wants to look at Derek and  _obey._

Stiles wants Derek to call him beautiful, and perfect, and  _good_.

|| — ||

Derek doesn’t even know Lydia that well. She’s a banshee, and fairly smart, but they never really talked. Until now, apparently.

‘I know Deaton told you,’ she says, cornering him in the vet’s office. They’re alone: Deaton’s rummaging around in the back, doing God knows what, and the other’s probably left already. It’s hard to pick up things from outside due to the magic Deaton does inside, but Derek knows they did. Scott and Kira together, Stiles alone. The boy smelled like Scott did after Allison. Like death, and despair, and anxiety.

Lydia comes closer. She smells like daisies, like lemon and something spicy, something determined. ‘I know Deaton told you why Scott’s not getting any better. And you’re going to tell me.’ Her heartbeat is steady. She’s not bluffing.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says anyway. His heart barely stutters. He remembers Laura teaching him how to control it so he could cover for her while she went out with friends. The taste of ashes is faint at the back of his throat.

‘I won’t tell Stiles, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she continues, ignoring his obvious lie. ‘I know that’s what it’s about.’

Derek gets it now, why Stiles used to have a crush on the woman in front of him. The boy needs someone to hold him down; to be honest with him. Stern, but not cruel. Stiles needed Lydia because she knows how to keep him grounded, because she takes up everything in your head.

‘Deaton thinks it might have been too late,’ he blurts out. ‘Because he’s so young. Something about vulnerability and growth.’

Lydia is silent for a while, running her hand through her hair. ‘Stiles can’t know about it,’ she says. ‘ _Ever_.’

|| — ||

There’s a neighbourhood in southeast Seattle called Beacon Hill. Stiles takes Derek to a restaurant. Neither of them think the name is funny, but Derek smirks anyway, just for Stiles’ amusement. They sit quietly at the table, and Derek acts like he doesn’t hear Stiles heart pound, like he doesn’t see the tight grip of his fingers around the knife he’s holding.

‘Do you miss it?’ Stiles asks, voice shaky.

Derek prods in his pasta, shoving it around his plate. ‘Sometimes,’ he admits. Beacon Hills had not been his home for a long time. It was easier than expected, leaving it behind. He doesn’t have to tell anyone that, but it feels good, just admitting it.

‘Why did you go after me?’ he blurts out then, and  _yes, there it is_. His heartbeat is out of control, but it’s slowing down a bit when Derek smiles, readying himself for an answer.

‘Because you’re pack,’ Derek shrugs.

Stiles scoffs, obviously not buying it. He raises one eyebrow: ‘Would you have done it for Scott?’

A laugh escapes from Derek’s throat like a bark. _Busted_. ‘No,’ he admits, ‘but I did it for you. Because you needed me, and you’re my friend.’

‘I needed you,’ Stiles repeats, slowly, like it’s in a language he doesn’t quite understand.

‘You did,’ Derek nods, ‘and you needed someone to keep you grounded.’

Unbelieving: ‘And you volunteered? As a…  _friend_?’

Derek rolls his eyes, swallows his bite of his pasta. ‘No, I was forced by Mrs. McCall— _Yes_ , Stiles. I volunteered.’

‘Why would you do that?’ Stiles cheeks are read, eyes big and confused. ‘Why would you leave your home?’

The answer is easy: ‘Because you needed me.’

|| — ||

‘I was there, you know,’ Stiles says while Derek plays Candy Crush on his phone. He’s at level 569, and he keeps getting stuck here, but he doesn’t know why. He’s just short one turn, and he can see Lydia’s stupid picture sneaking up behind him. She’s advanced seven levels since he’s stuck here, and he just doesn’t want her to beat him.

‘Where?’ he asks, not looking up.

There’s a pause, and Stiles’ heart flutters in a bad way. ‘At Deaton’s,’ he starts, stating it more like a question, ‘when you and Lydia…’

He doesn’t finish, doesn’t have to. Derek throws his phone next to him on the couch, huffs out a ‘Fuck, Stiles, I’m—’

‘No,’ Stiles interrupts. ‘Let me talk.’ He sounds desperate, determined, with hand gestures and deep breaths and a heartbeat going fast. ‘That day… When I heard it was my fault, I knew I had to go, okay? I told my dad and honestly, he was relieved. His only son away from a town full of supernatural bullshit. I told Scott, too. Said goodbye to him and all. He didn’t answer. But I  _had_  to leave, Derek. Not because I felt like everyone else blamed me, but because  _I_ blamed me. I couldn’t look at anything, couldn’t be reminded of Scott in any way without hating myself, without—without  _blaming_  myself. Leaving Beacon Hills… it was for  _me_. So I could get better. Because I couldn’t live with myself, because every turn of my head made me realise how bad—how bad I fucked up. How bad I fucked up Scott’s life.’

|| — ||

‘I’m sorry,’ he tells Scott. Mrs. McCall is working, Kira’s home. He runs his fingers through his best friend’s hair. ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to, Scott, you know that right?’

Scott only looks at him.

Stiles kisses his forehead.

|| — ||

‘Dad?’

‘Stiles? Is it Tuesday? I thought that was tomorrow.’

‘No, Monday, don’t worry, you’re not in the Alzheimer’s stage yet. It’s just… I think I’m ready to come home, dad.’

He can feel his father smile. ‘Alright, son. Do you want me to tell the others?’

‘Yeah. I’ll tell Derek.’

‘Alright. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?’

They hang up at the same time.

When he tells Derek, he kisses him, soft, like it matters.  

|| — ||

Stiles comes home from his last day at the bookstore to packed boxes and turned-off lights. Derek taking a nap in his bed. He trips over some discarded shoes, crawls in next to him beneath the sheets.

When their alarm goes off, it’s still dark outside.

He says: ‘I’ve been in love with you for a long time.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> there brief mentions of stiles having a panic attack and derek handling it. 
> 
> (is that all? i think that's all)


End file.
